Nanooks ready for NCAA Rifle Championships in Akron, Ohio

Post date: Mar 10, 2016 3:51:31 PM

Danny Martin Dmartin@newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS—The Alaska Nanooks can’t forget the 2015 NCAA Rifle Championships on their home range in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Patty Center.

They remember it because they placed second to West Virginia in the team standings by a slim margin — two points (4,702-4,700).

The close outcome affected the Nanooks’ preparation for matches during the 2015-16 regular season and for this weekend’s NCAA Championships at the University of Akron in Ohio.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve had a quite a few second and third-place finishes, and we’ve been so close,” Nanooks head coach Dan Jordan said during a meet-and-greet session for the team last Saturday at Chevrolet Buick GMC of Fairbanks.

“Last year, only being off by a mere number of points ... going into this year, they definitely want to win their own championship. They want to be part of that legacy,’’ Jordan said.

The legacy to which he alluded was 10 NCAA team titles in the Nanooks history, with the last one occurring in 2007, the first time the national meet took place at the Patty Center.

“It adds a little bit of pressure but I think it put a lot of drive and a lot of excitement going into the season,” Jordan said.

There’s drive and excitement from the fifth-ranked Nanooks for this year’s NCAA Championships, which begins Friday with smallbore matches. Air rifle competition takes place on Saturday.

“It’s been about the same mental approach, but we try to kick it even stronger during the season,’’ said senior Tim Sherry, who captured the individual smallbore title at the 2014 NCAAs in Murray, Kentucky.

“Right now, it’s just getting focused for championships, getting comfortable with the range,” Sherry, of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, added.

The Nanooks aren’t strangers to the Louis and Frieda Stile Athletics Field House on the University of Akron campus. They competed there last Nov. 7, placing fourth among five teams in the NCAA Rehearsal Meet.

“It’s an open setting,” said redshirt sophomore Sagen Maddalena said. “In smallbore, that’s normal; usually other ranges are more open.

“But in air rifle, it’s diffferent, we’re not used to having that much kind of space around us,’’ she said. “The sound is different, it’s going to register different in our heads, and the lighting will be a little different. It is different but shoot it like a regular target.”

The native of Groveland, California, who has been successful in the air rifle this season, got used to the NCAA Championships last year when she made her debut.

“I learned to feed off the excitement and the atmosphere. Feed my focus off that,’’ said Maddalena, who won the air rifle at the NCAA Qualifier meet against Texas El Paso and Nevada on Feb. 20 in the E.F. Horton Range at the Patty Center.

“I also learned it’s the same black dot (on the target) as everywhere else,’’ Maddalena continued. “Once I get that focus dialed in, I just have to do what I do every day in training.’’

Three Nanooks are making their NCAA Championships debut in Akron — redshirt junior Soren Butler, sophomore Luke Johnson and freshman and Lathrop High School graduate JT Schnering.

Contact sports editor Danny Martin at 459-7586. Follow him on Twitter:

@newsminersports.